Beets?

I just got back from my revise-a-thon (which is still in progress); I’ve made it through the first third of the manuscript and have added about 2,000 words that I’m very, very happy with. And I even got to include Leslie, Austin’s transvestite mascot. (He favors thongs, falsies, and a full beard. He can pull it off, though — he’s got terrific legs. I can’t wait to see what he’s wearing for Valentine’s Day!)

Anyway, last night after my bath and cold compresses (see possum incident, below), I opened up Jitterbug Perfume (what a title!), a Tom Robbins tome that I bought yesterday and haven’t read in about ten years. (It beat out the haunted castles, the dark fire something or other book, and the stack of travel essays.) And although the dialogue is not quite as sparkling as it seemed in my younger days, the opening is just as remarkable as I remember. Here it is:

TODAY’S SPECIAL

“The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.”

Ha!

Honestly, though. I’ve never thought of a tomato as frivolous before. Or a beet as serious, come to think of it. So thank you, Tom Robbins, for writing such weird and vegetable-y prose.

I am off now to return e-mails and pay my electric bill. And to exercise.

Ta for now, then… I hope your day is as zesty and interesting as Tom Robbins’ crisper drawer!